Firebolts and Angels
by Eristarisis
Summary: The War in the Air. What would it be like to have witches and wizards fighting the war in the air on the back of a broomstick? Currently, just a one-shot to explore what such combat would be like. If there is interest, leave a review and this could expand into a whole lot more!


**A/N**

Something that bugged me and wouldn't get out of my head. There are brooms, and we only ever get one air battle in the entire canon series in the form of the Battle of the 7 Potters. Here's my take on a magical war in the air.

Thanks to xxbadhackerzxx for acting as my sounding board and beta reader for this project.

Unless it gets a decent amount of interest, I am not going to be expanding this one any further and it will be treated as a 1 shot.  
_

**Chapter 1 **

**Angels on a Firebolt **

The Firebolt XX cut the air like a burning knife through freshly fallen snow. White contrails trailing from the bristles at the end of the broomstick. Following the gentle curve of Angel Three, rider Kimberly Tamsworth executed a perfect half-barrel loop into a sharp turn. She took her time, getting used to the feel of the broom again. A month in medical, recovering from her last brawl in the low skies over the English Channel meant asking too much of body and broom was not a good idea. Better to take some time, stretch the metaphorical wings and get used to being in the air again.

Where the muggles owned the high altitudes and could feasibly hold their own against Dragons, the brawls at lower altitudes, anything under 10,000 feet was broomstick territory. Muggle attack helicopters could deliver a devastating and precision ground strike, yet were ironically vulnerable to the fast-moving brooms. A rider was ironically, what was every attack helicopter pilot dreamed of being.

Through her goggles, she watched the precision movement of Angel Three, a cream and gold colored Firebolt XX and rider that hung like an angel basking in the sun. Alicia Spinnet, her control somehow flawlessly effortless. Kimberly knew that was far from the truth.

The war had raged on for years now. And amongst the broom riders, "The Angels" had been the first to take to the air over Hogwarts Castle to deny the air space to the enemy. Indeed, the Aces of the flight had spent more hours in the air than on the ground to hone their skills.

"Level out, Angel Seven," said Spinnet, "Watch the mountains. They are tall enough for wind shear to come off them."

"Confirm, Three," replied Kimberly. It was one of the longest sentences Spinnet had spoken since she had joined Angel Flight. Spinnet had lost two of her closest friends in the same vicious air brawl over the English Channel that had seen Kimberly distinguish, and nearly get herself killed in.

The dark, long running joke amongst Riders was that you had to look death in the eye and say "not today," while plummeting like a rock from three kilometers in the air, and survive to get an invitation to the Angels.

Kimberly had never understood whether Spinnet hated her for surviving what her friends had not, and had always been politely distant. But it was not in any way that you could get mad about. It was almost as if she was disinterested in making friends.

The warning aside, the air was calm and it was simple enough to stay on her tail. She craned her neck constantly sweeping the skies for the telltale patch of shadow, the telltale flash of sunlight that could indicate enemy fliers.

She felt disappointment as the skies continued to remain clear. Broom Riders, especially Angel Flight never landed without drawing the blood of the enemy in the air. It was a pride thing, a unit mythos. Just like getting an invitation to join them.

Still scanning the air around them, a voice crackled in their ears. Angels Four and Eighteen had made contact with enemy fliers. They had called in the contact, requested an immediate assist and then the radio had gone to dead air.

Magic made many things that seemed insane possible, but muggles and modern technology had fixed a number of other problems. Riders carried simple radios and could talk to each other. Changing channels was a matter of voice recognition software - just say "switch." The only real limitation was the range, a few dozen kilometers at most.

Combat was easy to spot: - the flashes of curses and charms sizzled back and forth. The deathly green of Avada Kedevra countered by the silver and blue of cutting charms and piercing hexes. Green fire lanced across the skies, with only the occasional lance of silver of spread of blue in the mix.

"About 2 kilometers, West at 5-5-0 low," reported Kimberly.

The fliers were once again using Dragons to act as mobile transports, and it was not uncommon for them to be carrying a clutch or two of explosives in their massive claws. Normally, the sight of a dragon, never mind three of them would give any sane individual a moments' pause.

The Angels had taken note of them, and more specifically what looked like almost thirty fliers flying escort on the Dragons. The air brawl was speeding up as more and more Riders and fliers were getting drawn in to the aerial brawl.

Spinnet's order was given in clipped, ice cold tone. Perfectly professional, colder than the icicles forming around their fingers, "Angel Flight: - Cloak and Smoke."

Her Firebolt executed a pinpoint turn and boosted up, vanishing from view as her disillusionment charm took hold.

Disillusionment charms reduce them to ripples in the air for those scant seconds, before they cut down like a knife through the enemy. Their attacking spells stripping away the concealment of the charms.

Spinnet and the Angels pounced on the fliers and Kimberly relished the panic she has seen in their desperate scatter. Spinnet cut a flier from the sky before they even realized the direction of the attack with a brace of cutting charms.

One broke high and she anticipated, casting silently. Her wand mounted just below and forwards of the handgrips of her broom reacted instantly. She had a good angle of deflection and her piercing hexes perforated both flier rider and broom. Hauling hard, she turned and fell like a stone, swooping down on the closest Dragon: - a Welsh Green.

The Dragons were clearly not the majestic beasts that they once were. They were more akin to flying, disease riddled skeletons. Many of those in the "service" of the enemy had been subjected to unimaginable physical torture and mental horror, to break their minds and free will.

Indeed, it was a kindness to put them out of their miserable existence. Fortunately, most of them had been evacuated in the early days of the war to Dragon preserves in the United States, Eastern Europe, and as far afield as Australia.

It was why Dragons, once the preeminent magical creature to own the skies, now needed such a heavy escort: - They had no mind to speak off, and were not capable of defending or even evading when attacked. Hence the dozen or so dozen Death Eaters that rode on the dragon's back, doing their level best to bring down the Riders with volley after volley of spell fire.

Spinnet had already made the third or fourth pass, using powerful cutting and piercing hexes to lay open the scales and flesh around the wing joint of one dragon and left none of the Death Eaters alive. The following strafing run cut muscle and severed tendons. Deprived of one wing, the beast plummeted. Its crash would add another hundred-meter scar into the butchered urban scape of Wrexham below.

Kimberly swept in too fast, missed the second but lined up on the third. Her 2-1-2 attack pattern raked the dragon from tail to neck, piercing the scales before cutting into the softer muscle beneath before finally blasting hexes exploited the weakness created seconds prior.

In a near reckless loop, she dove beneath the lashing tail struggling behemoth Nearly severed in half, the beast dropped from the sky.

A quartet of riders closed in the last Dragon, diving desperately to shake off its pursuers. A futile attempt. There was no way it could hope to outrun them. Blasting curses flared from the riders, and the Hebridean Black obligingly flew face-first into them. Blood sprayed from its ruined face as it painted a bloody arc towards the ground.

It slammed into the face of the mountain below, adding yet another bloody furrowed scar to the eerily silent snow-covered landscape.

Despite losing two of their number, Angel Flight reformed and resumed their patrol circuit as though nothing had occurred. A good start. At least two-thirds of the fliers killed, and three dragons. Not bad for her first day back in the air.

The fliers had not seen them until it was too late thanks to the use of Disillusionment Charms, and the weather was overcast, making it hellishly difficult to spot the telltale ripples until it was almost always too late.

Unfortunately, that had the tendency to cut both ways, and Angel Flight knew that as they kept up their visual scanning.

To the south, barely visible on the horizon, the Thames River formed the Front Line in the war for aerial supremacy over what was left of London. The Light Side – comprised of the Order of the Phoenix, the Ministry of Magic, Hogwarts and The Legion, held the South bank, back to the cliffs of Dover and the English Channel.

But Wales was predominantly under the control of the Dark and this left them potentially open to a flanking attack from the Cambrian Mountains that could potentially cut a large swatch of territory - everything South of Liverpool to the North bank of the Thames. Securing Wales was the next step.

It had fallen to Broom Riders, like Angel Flight and perhaps a dozen other such Flights to act as both reconnaissance, early warning and a snap interception force to deny the Enemy the skies overhead first, and second, the ground beneath them.

While the Cambrians were now snow-covered peaks that rose up like fanged fingers that had kept the potential of an Enemy advance at bay, aerial encounters were becoming the norm as several waves of Dragons and fliers had firebombed the towns of Mold, Wrexham and Colywn Bay into fire swept ghost towns in as many days.

Angel Flight had been the point of the sword that had pushed them back into the mountains, and was determined to keep them there, even though the fresh wave of attacks made clear that this was just the opening in a new flank from which to strike at the English heartland.

"Angels, hold formation," snapped Spinnet.

They were drifting apart slightly due to the wind shear that she'd warned them about. By a scant three meters. It wasn't much when flying in a pair, but in a larger formation, especially an airborne Flight, being out of position meant that support and cover for those on the edges, and most dangerous points of the formation was broken, leaving blind spots that would and had gotten people killed.

She nudged her broom back in line, matching Spinnet's turn, smoothly like a flock of geese flying south for the winter. She glanced at the chronometer strapped to the broomstick, just a few inches below her hand grips. They had already been up for forty-five minutes.

Given the cold, their altitude and that they had already been through one brawl, that was more than half their allowed flight time, but the call came through from Operations that there was another flight, some twenty-five kilometers south, heavily engaged, and losing.

Twenty-five Kilometers, at maximum speed, with the cold… and then a full-on engagement with at least forty enemy fliers. It would stretch the entire flight to the limit. "Flight, we have an ongoing intercept. Spyglass Flight is down to five. Punch it!"

Smoothly, every rider leaned in, and tensed, using a seeker grip position to prevent blood from being forced from the head and vital organs. Losing blood flow meant losing more important Oxygen leading to blackouts and a near guaranteed to be fatal fall. Suffice to say that the riders "parachute" had less than a stellar performance record - Kimberly could attest to that.

They crossed the airspace in a little under two minutes and immediately slowed. They needed that last few precious seconds of cruising to get the rush of blood returning to hands and feet with a painful prickling sensation aside. Spyglass Flight had been reduced to four against almost ten times the number of enemies. It was a purely defensive aerial ballet, as the riders used every trick in the book to dance out of the way of a nearly endless stream of curses, hexes and jinxes.

Even with Angels committing to the fight, they were still outnumbered at least 4 to 1. She checked the chronometer on her groom again. Just enough for this one fight.

It got ugly with explosive quickness.

The sky was suddenly filled with lights as spell fire sizzled back and forth. Spyglass was still twisting and turning with desperate dives. Such maneuvers could work, but not when so heavily outnumbered.

"Spyglass, Angels inbound."

The Angels descended from the heavens like a meteor shower. Kimberly slipped behind one flier who had not realized the danger as he flew straight and level, trying to line up on one of Spyglass. Complacency. The enemy flier was making the last mistake many rookies made.

She cast and he flew in to her stream of piercing hexes. The broom continued to cross the sky as the flier proceeded to connect with the ground below. She side slipped, barreled past one, two, and then lined up on the third.

A broom flashed past her head and she yanked hard, rolling in to a right spun barrel roll. She pulled up, to bleed speed and settled in perfectly behind the flier that had nearly struck her. Fingers tingling, she sent a rapid double cast, blasting the tail off the broom and then the rider.

"Seven! Break! Break!"

She tightened her grip and pivoted on a dime, dropping like a stone as curses painted the air space she had just vacated. The flier turned into the chase. Kimberly danced through the air, a series of banks, rolls and sharp drifts and turns.

The flier stuck with her, unleashing curses at where he thought she would be, trying to anticipate her. She hauled back on the broomstick hard and then slammed the broom down hard. She risked a stall, but the flier zipped past her on the right.

On the rising arc of a very tight downward loop, she snapped off a series of blasting hexes and was rewarded as the shockwaves forced the flier in to trying to fly straight and level. Her cutting charms ripped into the flier's flank, side and then it began an uncontrolled roll, spinning to the hard-packed snow below.

She pulled up to gain altitude and pick up her visual scanning and assessed the ongoing brawl. The Angles had lost another three. Spy Glass was down to two. But incredibly, the odds were more or less even.

Or would be if Spinnet had not hexed one then cursed another two fliers out of the skies.

The last of Spyglass took a glancing hit, and slumped over on his broom. She rolled in, and lashed the attacking flier with her trademark 2-1-2 combination. Blue, silver and red streamed from the nose of her broom but the deflection was poor as her shots fell short.

She nudged over and let loose another combination. This time, the flier and his broom were shredded totally into a smear of black and crimson.

She wasn't sure who made the dreaded call, "Rider Down!" but she reacted instantly.

"Angel Seven on Assist!"

She'd been there once before and survived the experience - and been grounded for three months due to the injuries sustained. Most said it was a miracle she survived - even with magic. It was an experience she didn't want to repeat.

It was not an experience she wanted anyone else to have to live through if she could help it.

She dove hard and fast. They were high enough when Spyglass took his hit, and somewhere in his free fall, he'd become separated from his broom. If awake and able to pull the spare wand that the majority of riders carried tucked in to their sleeve, there was a lot you could do to try and soften the landing. Arresto momentum, or even a first-year levitation charm could slow a fall to make apparating to safety a reasonable possibility.

The fallen rider grew larger in her field of view as she closed the distance separating them. Several dots splattered against her goggles, and smeared, leaving a cataract like smear across the left lens of her goggles.

He was bleeding. Not badly, but certainly enough to get him killed in the next minute or two.

She shot past him and levelled out some fifty feet below, and took careful aim and unleashed a series of charms to slow the rider's fall in to some semblance of a controlled descent. Kimberly made no attempt to catch him - something which could kill them both.

Finally, after several tense moments, she had him and lowered both of them to the relative safety of the ground. Landing, she waved her wand in a complicated pattern around them both, incanting an entire string of charms for safety, security, concealment and warning.

Then she finally pulled the small box that was Velcro attached to his hip, enlarged it and popped it open to reveal a fully stocked kit. She managed to get two blood replenishers down his throat, followed by a liberal splash of Dittany to close the wounds.

The wounds dealt with, she ran her wand over him several times, and sighed with relief. A broken rib, some bad bruising, but the mismatched slashes across his ribs were the worst of his injuries. They would leave some nasty scars but he'd survive.

"Angel Seven - Angel Three,"

"Seven here,"

"He'll make it. But he's going to be walking home."

"Copy Three. Fight's done. See you on base. Safe travels."

She gave him fifteen minutes, then hit him with an Enervate. His eyes opened and he sat up, slowly and sluggish. Clearly his body was still catching up with his mind that had taken in their surroundings and made perhaps that most important of realizations: - He wasn't dead.

"Took a beating," she said. She pulled two small foil sachets from a pocket and cast a finite on them, before handing one to him, "But you'll fly again."

He grunted, taking the offering, "Are you referring to me, or my broom?"

She smirked, "You obviously. The broom is probably halfway to the Channel by now." He turned and saw her properly for the first time. There was something striking about her features, but it was the eyes. Once dubbed the windows to the soul by some poet or other. Her eyes were the deepest shade of sapphire blue that he'd ever seen. Of course, that made her eyes a truly violent contrast to the orange and red hair that spilled down her shoulders. "You gonna drink that?"

"Drink what?" he said

"Soup," said Kimberly, holding up the sachet. making it sound like a joke, "After a fall like that one, I don't think you need a coffee for extra jitters." She scrunched it up, then laid it down on its side. Within seconds its started to hiss, then began to boil. "Gotta love some of the stuff the Muggles come up with."

He held the sachet for a moment then mimicked her, almost hesitantly. He cursed quietly but managed to drop his sachet next to hers. She smiled, almost cheekily, "Pureblood?"

"Is it that obvious?" he said with a sigh.

"Yep, she said. She lifted the first sachet and carefully popped the top open, dropped in the spoon and handed it over. He took a grateful sip. It tasted of heat, warmth, vegetables. Meat of some kind. The best thing he'd probably had to drink in recent days.

They drank their soup in silence for a long moment, both of them scanning both the sky and ground. But all was mercifully quiet. Finally, she vanished her empty packaging and stood up. Her broom, floated the few meters to her and came to rest comfortably in her hand.

"Why?" he blurted out suddenly,

"Why what?" she asked.

"You knew Spyglass flight was all pureblood. The flight…has a reputation," he finished lamely.

"It's a flight filled with defectors, malcontents and the unwanted, the traitors and Merlin alone knows what other dregs and leftovers." She said calmly.

He looked away at her honest, but still harsh assessment of not just his flight, but also of him. She sighed, "We've got enough enemies on the ground and in the air. The last thing we need to do is fight amongst ourselves and do the enemy's work for them."

She hesitated, and shut up. She didn't agree, but orders were orders. And she'd be failing in those orders if she let her personal beliefs get in the way of things, especially now. "Can you reach your position from here?"

"Yes. I'm based out of Hay-on-Wye."

"See you in the air somewhere then. Good flying."

"I didn't catch your name, Ms. …"

"Kimberly," she replied.

"Don't suppose I can interest you in a warm meal and a hot shower before you head back to yours?"

She looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, and then nodded. She whipped out her wand and send a Patronus dashing across the snow, "I'll see you there."

He nodded and vanished in a swirl of dark light and shadow.

She mounted and kicked off in a single smooth fluid motion.

9


End file.
